Sleeping With My Wife

by Telling Dad on March 16, 2012

It just doesn’t happen.

When Heather and I were first married we enjoyed the bliss of uninterrupted sleep and intimacy. Anytime, anywhere, whether we wanted to get some or just get some sleep, we could do it on our own terms and at our leisure.

Then a head crowned.

And since then, I can count the number of times we’ve enjoyed an entire night all to ourselves alone in the same bed on one hand.

Even if that hand was missing four fingers.

We’ve never lived close enough to our respective parents to request a reprieve and there’s no one we know whom we’d subject to an entire overnight experience with our children. Like Alcatraz, there’s no escape.

Where most parental units get to at least sleep alone in their own beds at night, we haven’t enjoyed that luxury since Kamryn learned to walk.

Some kids can’t sleep unless they’re accompanied by their favorite blanket. Others need to be snuggled in with their favorite stuffed animal. For our daughter Kamryn, she’s unable to fall asleep unless she has a knee wedged in someone’s spine. And that someone is usually me.

Heather wised up long ago and now often goes to bed with a levee of pillows erected between us. A plush mountain that I refer to as the Greg Barrier Reef. I’ll say goodnight and she’ll extend a wave with an outstretched hand that barely crests the Great Wall of Cotton.

A few hours after we settle Kamryn into her bed, we’ll hear the pitter-patter of approaching feet as she rumbles down the hallway. She’ll climb into our bed and nestle comfortably between myself and Heather’s pillowed embankment.

I don’t mind the nightly visitor as it comforts me to know that she’s comforted. What I do mind is how Kamryn kicks and thrashes in her sleep as though she’s dreaming about cage fighting.

We fall asleep as three parallel I’s. We wake up as one capital H. While Kamryn always enjoys a fully-stretched night of sleep, Heather and I find ourselves pushed, shoved, and eventually confined to a six-inch swath of mattress by sunrise.

Drawing is not to scale. Her feet feel MUCH bigger.

The result is a daily soreness blended with constant yawning as we daydream about someday enjoying a full night’s sleep. Or at least a somewhat full night alone so we can recoup some deprived sezzy time. (Note that I said deprived. Not depraved. There’s a really big difference.)

Thanks to a freebie Hilton Guest Stay Certificate that we received after a dismal experience at one of their hotels, we’re going away together (just the two of us) for the first time in years. Heather’s dad will be making the drive to stay with the kiddos overnight and we’re going to head to Niagara Falls for some long overdue alone time.

I already have the entire night planned out.

We’ll pull into town and take a quick look at one of the most glorious natural wonders in the world. From there we’ll hastily check into our room, lead each other to the bed, and take a nap.

I’ll then draw Heather a warm bath in the Jacuzzi tub where she’ll enjoy a relaxing soak that doesn’t include colored fizzy bathwater. She’ll also be surrounded by flowers and a view of the Falls from above rather than walls decorated with Crayola Bathtub Crayons.

Once she’s nice and relaxed, I’ll take her by the hand and escort her to freshly-drawn sheets.

Where we’ll take a nap.

Fully rested, we’ll head out to a nice romantic dinner, drink some wine to lower inhibitions and help put us in the mood, and then return to the hotel. Knowing how much my wife loves chocolate, I’ll seductively touch her lips with some Ghirardelli and whisper “I love you” before taking our nap.

We’ll wake up, get ready for bed, and dress in our most alluring attire (which for me is a baggy pair of grandma-jammies and a t-shirt that reads, “This is what awesome looks like”). We’ll slip under the covers, and for the first time in years, I’ll be able to look my wife in the eyes as she rejects me.

Then we’ll take a nap.

All.

Night.

Long.

When we awake in the morning after going the entire night without spine encroachment, water requests, or monster searches, we’ll order breakfast to our room, enjoy the view as we eat, and slip the “Do Not Disturb” placard on the door.

And that’s when the moment will happen. After months of longing for it, we’ll finally take a nap before noon.

One minute before checkout we’ll head to the lobby, meet the valet at our vehicle, and make the 3-hour drive home.

As we walk through the front door, still basking in the afterglow of Nap-a-Palooza, we’ll embrace our children, say our hello’s, and immediately start counting down the years to our next escape.

So sadly tragically true. We had that with all three kids and the girl was the worst. You do know that you need to interrupt the behavior, right? And when I say interrupt, I mean make your lives MORE difficult. We had periods of taking our daughter back to bed after she fell asleep. Similar periods of one of us sleeping on the couch. She even had a bed in our sitting room which was mildly successful.

We finally had to pull the “Just say No!” moment. We had to escort her back and tuck her in. Thankfully we had older brothers we could lean on. When she has a really bad dream she knows she can climb in with her brother. Not ideal, but gives us a break.

I showed the picture of the capital H to my wife and she knew what it was before I explained. She said “looks like Teenwolf” (names changed to protect the ignorant.

Go Greg and Heather! Enjoy the naps! And the “ya know” if you can work that in ; ). Those long ago days of kids climbing in bed are fond memories now. BECAUSE they’re memories! There is hope. Have a great time next weekend!

I made a rule about the kids in bed with us. They are allowed five minutes to snuggle and then we bring them back to bed. Not because we’re mean or wanted them to learn self comforting, but because I toss and turn like a mad woman and I was always terrified of kicking them in the head! There are nights when I end up with my feet on the pillows!

You should totally turn the tables on Kamryn one night. Just as soon as you tuck her into bed and leave the room, wait a minute then go back in and snuggle down with her. It’ll totally throw her for a loop and if worse comes to worse she’ll leave you alone and go snuggle with Mrs. Telling Dad…you still won’t get to sleep a whole night, big guy like you in a toddler bed and all, but you’ll get a good post out of it for sure.

I totally agree about the separate beds. Are there two beds? That would be SO AWESOME.

As someone who had a child 3 years before getting married, I am planning on using our wedding night this coming October to SLEEP. SWEET SWEET SLEEP. No point in wasting time on “ya know”…that’s like 8 minutes that could be spent sleeping, in my humble opinion.

I have had two nights in three years spent away from my three year old, although I was in the hospital having a tiny human ripped out of me. But I completely understand the diagram, only my husband gets the brunt of it since I have the baby to tend to. Have fun with your napping.

This was hilarious! Sometimes I wonder if I will ever know what it is like to go to bed at night and sleep until the morning uninterrupted EVER again. Remember when you used to just be able to take a nap whenever you wanted to? Ha- those days are long gone too.

Or tell her the monsters have moved under your bed now because she doesn’t sleep in her own. Also tell her if she sleeps all night in her own bed, you can trap the monster under yours so it won’t go back to her room.

She’ll never sleep in your bed again. I honestly don’t know what I’d do if Ro tried to sleep in our bed every night. I think I’d lose it completely. It’s MY bed, not hers. She has her own. Plus, since she was a baby, she has slept through the night — well once she decided it was bed time, that is. She used to keep us up until 2 or 3 am! But once she was out, she was out 8-10 hours.

My kids are 12 and 14 and my husband and I STILL have not had a night out alone – all night. Thankfully our kids don’t crawl into bed with us now at their age (LOL) we have to contend with five cats (our dog knows better).

Enjoy each and every moment of it. Maybe some day I can write a similar post.

My husband loves to tell people that he hasn’t slept alone in his bed for 28 years. That’s 16 for the first child and 12 for the second. Of course it hasn’t been 28 years but you get what I’m saying. We now have a king size bed. My 12 year old still makes an appearance almost nightly, somewhere between 2 and 5 am. He crowds my husband, my space isn’t usually limited too much. Happy Niagara Nap Fest!

We’ve finally gotten a few nights to ourselves after offering the kiddo a treat if she stayed in her bed all night long for 5 nights. This was out of desperation since she’s almost 6 and those feet are HUGE! (and she grinds her teeth…ahhh!). We made a chart to track the nights and everything! Saying no in the middle of the night just didn’t work for us…I’ll take the feet in my back over screaming drama at 2am, lol!

Lol have fun!!! It isn’t fair just when the kids get old enough to stop coming in the room in the middle of the night – they are suddenly loud teens banging around in the kitchen at night and you feel like you only made a 360 turn right back where you started. Just think in 16 or so years you’ll long for those interruptions again. That is after catching up on sleep.

My daughter (11) sleeps like this — what’s the name of that kind of Extreme Fighting that has been banned in New York City? That’s her. A king size bed and a wall of the made-for-a-king-size-bed pillows can’t contain her.

2 words: baby gate. Our gate saved our bed. We liked to think we were protecting our daughter by gating her in her room (her bedroom was upstairs, ours was down. She didn’t need to be going down the stairs at night. PLUS we had a loft wall that she could theoretically fall over). But really we were keeping our bed to ourselves. She’s just like your Kamryn- thrashes all over and isn’t happy unless a limb or two is wedged into mommy or daddy’s body somewhere. She’s now 4 and we have a new house and no baby gate and she won’t come into our bed unless there’s a thunderstorm. Thank goodness.

I remember the nights like that… Then my brother had a kid. Now he knows what it’s like too. So we put into place sleepovers once a month. We take turns. And for one glorious night, I get to sleep through the night… and sleep in on Sundays. And I don’t have to feed or take care of anyone but me… Like a friggin single person!

I must admit.. I usually miss the heck out of those little rug rats though!!! Til they come back of course… and the whining begins.

Dude, nip this in the bud before it gets worse! I know kids that have done this into HIGH SCHOOL. You don’t want that, and at some point it’s going to get REALLY WEIRD. Make sure you stop this well before she could have any anatomy questions.

Our son is 9 and is just now sleeping in his own bed — for most nights of the week. He is an “H” sleeper as well, with the added bonus of tunneling toes. He rotates those sharp raptor claws and digs into us all night. I have left our bed to sleep alone in his, but he is a little heat seeker and will find me wherever I go in the house. Like you and Heather, our parents are not close by, so reprieves come once maybe twice a year.

Wow, I am seriously laughing out loud. We play musical beds in my house, too – which is totally not as fun as it sounds like it should be! My 9-yr-old usually sneaks into our bed after I tuck her in (my husband goes to bed at the same time as the kids.) When I go to bed a couple of hours later, I have to rouse her sleepy butt and steer her back to her own bed. A couple of hours later, I wake up with my 6-yr-old’s head on my shoulder and her little body curled around my arm. By morning we have formed the Family H, with her feet planted firmly on my husband’s spine. (Assuming Husband hasn’t bailed by then and found another bed to sleep in.)

On the bright side, the constant invasion of privacy and ongoing sleep deprivation have kept us from creating yet another precious little black hole of need to raise. So at least there’s that.

I have no children, you may have guessed that already, but i DID have a poodle, who lived for an exhorbitant 20 years, and i have experienced the capital H on the bed (MANY times), and sleeping on the seam around the edge of the mattress… she was a freakishly long bodied poodle, and who exactly put her in charge i would like to know… *woof woof*

You had me at “knee wedged in someone’s spine”. Oh yes. I know it well. Or, rather, my husband does as I, also, have a pillow embankment on my side. My husband calls it the “berlin wall”. Yeah, babe… it’s there for a reason. You had me crying here in my cubicle over that letter H. SO TRUE. Good post, sir. Hope you enjoyed your naps. Cheers!